MR Meter - experience required!

[Martin Horne]

I've acquired a beautiful MR Meter thanks to a fellow forum member. I'm new to the meter and to be honest manual metering in general. The meter is boxed and I have the instruction manual which I understand completely.

What I don't have is the confidence yet that the meter is actually metering correctly - I'm half way through a film so wont really know until it is finsihed and processed.

When I test the battery the meter arm swings from the back plate side straight to the black dot as it should. I then set the film speed by pressing the approprite button and take a reading before setting the aperture/shutter speed.

In bright light the meter goes all the way to the top of the scale as you would expect but it's not far short of the top of the scale in a dimly lit room with a few lamps and TV either. This morning whilst fiddling I covered over the front of the meter and low and behold was still getting F4 at 1/250th. I assume I've a problem or am doing something wrong...

I'm going to send the camera and lense to CRR for a CLA when Peter can take it so do I send the meter or am I making some newbie error that I can easily sort out such as the early stages of a new battery being needed or somesuch?

Thanks all.

 

[Film dino]

Have you any means of comparing the meter against another of known accuracy? e.g. compare readings off an 18% grey card

 

[RichardB]

On the Leica MR meter I have, the battery test dot is white. On top of the meter is a little dial with two positions with a black and red dot. Set to the the black dot, it is for outdoor exposures and set to the red it is for indoor exposures. The f stops scales match the dot color.
Note: the original battery is not available and the substitute battery voltage is slightly different. this can be adjusted by Leica but since the reading is so gross anyway, I have not had it done. The meter when attached reads about what a 90 mm lens would. Hope this helps-Dick

 

[paragon]

The Leica meters that I have had experience of are great for "show" - but that's all

they will confuse you rather than help

buy a good old fashioned Gossen or similar - £25 ish

 

[ferider]

I only have experience with the MR4 and find it pretty accurate.

A couple of notes, Martin, forgive me if you know this already:

- from a previous measurement, the needle locks in place.
- battery test should point to the respective dot on the scale. When you cover the meter sensor with your finger, put the meter on the black scale, and re-measure, the needle should go all the way to zero.

f4/250 in the dark is certainly wrong. If you measured correctly, the meter will need a CLA. The biggest advantage of the MR meters is the coupling to
the speed scale, IMO.

Best,

Roland.

 

[Joop van Heijgen]

The Leica meters that I have had experience of are great for "show" - but that's all

they will confuse you rather than help

buy a good old fashioned Gossen or similar - £25 ish

The MR leica works very good and effective for making your photos!

I use this meter for more than 25 years on the Leica M4.

The metering results are the same as the Leicaflex SL (2)!

One of the best metering systems Leica has ever made in her cameras!


You can use the Mallory (Varta) battery PX 625 for ten years in this MR meter!